


Stannum et Cruor

by leoba



Series: Scary Stories [2]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blood, F/M, Shapeshifting, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-07-26 01:26:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16209773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leoba/pseuds/leoba
Summary: Tin and Blood. Rey has an important decision to make.





	Stannum et Cruor

**Author's Note:**

> A vampire AU for Reylo Monster Week, Day One. Based on the premise from China Miéville’s excellent novella _The Tain_.
> 
> Thanks to @lovethemfiercely, who is my beta for all my Reylo Monster Week stories.

  
  


I need to make the right decision. **  
**

My name is Rey. I’m nobody of consequence. It’s three months into the vampire invasion. Well, we call them vampires because it’s the closest analogy and nobody can bother thinking up a better name for them. Goddamned blood-drinking shapeshifters doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. But whatever. Not important now.

What's important now is that I’m standing in the doorway to the bathroom, pointing a shotgun at my husband and trying to decide what to do. The choice would be easier if I knew for a fact this thing in front of me wearing my husband’s face, and a great deal of blood, is actually my husband.

* * *

We’d been so careful with the mirrors. Ever since it started we’d followed the government's instructions to a T. Breaking them didn't help, that just made more mirrors, more opportunities for them to come through. So we covered them up, painted them, buried them in the ground, covered them in darkness to render them impotent. And not only mirrors, but any shiny surface.

They can come through any of them, you know. They come through, looking just like you. Shapeshifters, drawn somehow from whatever universe, the reflective surface acting as a portal. That’s what reflections are, we know now. That’s not really you in the mirror, it's some creature forced to mimic you through some horrible interdimensional physics. That's why they don’t make reflections themselves. They come through, they kill you, drink your blood, and take your place. Then they do everything they can to bring over more of themselves. It’s our blood, we’ve been told. They hate us for controlling them through the mirrors, but they really love to drink our blood. They’re going to take over if we can’t get it back under control.

Anyway, Ben. He'd dropped the thermometer, one of the old-fashioned ones, with the mercury. Old habits, I guess, he must have been too distracted by the fear of mercury poisoning to think about his reflection in the small silver puddle. But it was enough.

I didn't hear the shatter of the glass tube but I heard him swearing, calling out that he’d broken the damn thermometer, and why hadn’t we invested in an electric thermometer like normal people. By the time I set my book aside and was halfway down the hallway he was screaming. The bathroom door was closed and I could hear the commotion; I knew exactly what it was and, following government protocols, I knew what I had to do.

Prevent the spread at all costs.

I know from personal experience what it looks like when you don’t follow protocols. My best friend, Rose, and her boyfriends, Poe and Finn, didn’t follow protocols. It turned out later that Poe had been the first to go; his vampire had come through a fucking puddle after a storm, just goes to show you’re never safe. The thing had been able to cover for itself, Finn and Rose probably didn’t realize what had happened until they were almost gone themselves. It had scraped the paint off their bathroom mirror and somehow lured them into the room. The vampires lived as the three of them for a while, until a nosy neighbor found their bodies, broken and drained of blood, stuffed in a trash can, and called the agency. A SWAT team came for them, but it was too late. They’re still out there, I guess, those creatures that look like my friends. Luring people to mirrors, stealing their faces and drinking their blood.

I have been through too much in my life to fall for that. I’m not going to let that happen to me.

The shotgun was in the kitchen, stored loaded. I ran for it, and by the time I got back to the bathroom the commotion had stopped. The door opened, and there he was. Ben. My Ben, looking just like himself, tall and strong, dark hair mussed, large ears peeking through his hair as usual. His gorgeous lips, familiar moles scattered across his long face, and his eyes, dark and beautiful and full of fear as he stares down the muzzle of the shotgun I’m holding in his face.

He’s covered with blood. His body and his face are doused in it, as are the body and the face of the other Ben who is lying on the ground just behind him, eyes open but lifeless, staring at nothing.

His voice is quiet and coaxing. He sure sounds like my Ben. “I got him, sweetheart. I got him before he got me. Now, put down the gun so we can call the agency to come pick this guy up.” He’s holding his hands up in a gesture of submission, and I am trying to remember everything I’ve read about how the vampires will try to fool you. I am also thinking about how those hands, or hands exactly like them, brought me to orgasm just hours ago, early morning sunlight streaming through the bedroom window diffused by the frosted film we put on the window months ago to destroy the reflectivity of the glass. We lay together after, joyful in each other’s company and looking forward to the day ahead.

Oh God, I hope I make the right decision.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first of my submissions to Reylo Monster Week. As a challenge I set to myself, I'm writing these all as kind of Lovecrafitan/Weird/Cosmic Horror things, which means:
> 
> *Lots of character death  
> *Lots of unpleasant monsters  
> *First-person narration aka unreliable narrator
> 
> All of my submissions are based on existing stories, and references to these will be in the tags.
> 
> I hope you enjoy, please leave kudos or a comment if you do.
> 
> I'm leofgyth over on tumblr, please come say hi!


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